The sentinel,--who was an Irishman--insisted that there certainly had been red-skins there.
[Illustration: "INDIANS!"] "But you must be mistaken," said Colonel Royal.
"Upon me sowl, Colonel, I'm not; as shure ez me name's Pat Maloney, one of thim rid divils hit me on the head wid a club, so he did," said Pat; and so, when morning came, the mystery was further investigated and was easily solved.

Elk tracks were found in the vicinity and it was undoubtedly a herd of elks that had frightened Pat; as he had turned to run, he had gone under a limb of a tree, against which he hit his head, and supposed he had been struck by a club in the hands of an Indian.

It was hard to convince Pat however, of the truth.
A three days uninteresting march brought us to Beaver Creek where we camped and from which point scouting parties were sent out in different directions.

Neither of these parties discovering Indians they all returned to camp about the same time, finding it in a state of great excitement, it having been attacked a few hours previous by a party of Indians, who had succeeded in killing two men and in making off with sixty horses belonging to Co.

H.
That evening the command started on the trail of these Indian horse-thieves; Major Brown with two companies and three days rations pushing ahead in advance of the main command.